Brittany’s Story

Brittany's Story

About 3 months ago I endured one of my biggest fears; Miscarriage. I was not a stranger to it. I
knew quite a bit about it. I had been surrounded by it, by so many women in my life. I knew it
was quite common. What I did not know about it, was how much it affected people’s lives. Of
course I knew it was heartbreaking. My own heart would break when I would learn of it
happening to someone. You just never know that YOU will be that 1 in 4 statistic. I was.

My husband and I have a 4 year old daughter and for the last year had been talking about trying
again. We only tried for 2 months and I was pregnant. At first it didn’t feel real because it
happened so quickly. We were SO excited! Wow, that was quick! Here we go again. Of course
you start to imagine everything about the baby from it’s head to its toes. Another factor for us
was our 4 year old. We told her when we went to the first ultrasound at 9 weeks and she came
with us. Everything looked great! Wonderful heartbeat. Baby was moving around. Healthy baby!
4 weeks later in week 13 of pregnancy, we found the heartbeat on our personal home doppler.
The most beautiful sound. Then of course you let yourself feel a smidge of security and peace.
Like “we’ve made it little baby, we’re in the safe zone.” 2 days later came the daunting words
“yeah, i’m not seeing a heartbeat.” My doctor couldn’t find the heartbeat so she sent me over to
ultrasound tech to take a look just to make sure everything was fine. The tech searched for
about 2 mins with a weary look on her face. I continued to tell myself “it’s okay everything’s fine.”

Not to mention I had my 4 year old daughter in the room with me. My husband was working.
After searching for the heartbeat, followed those gut wrenching words. Let me tell you, I don’t
typically cry in front of people and immediately the tears started rolling. It seemed like from an
instant though I had already tried to start pulling myself together, for my daughter. I still needed
to figure out how to break the news to her. Later on the doctor talked to me more to explain
what was going on. From the waist up everything seemed to form pretty great. From the waist
down was a different story. Our baby’s intestines were outside of her stomach, and her legs did
not form very well. She just wasn’t very healthy…There’s a part of me that thanks God for
making that decision for us, because had we come to our 19 week ultrasound and make the
decision on how to proceed.. I mean how does someone go through that either? God knew our
little girl was better off in his hands.

I always thought “if it(miscarriage) ever happened to me, i don’t even know what I would do.”
Here I am 4 months in and I STILL don’t know how to handle my heart ache. It has not gotten
any easier. I have not accepted it. Part of me always feels like I will never accept it, but then
when/if the day comes and I accept it.. Do i feel guilty for accepting it? That brings on another
subject..GUILT. One of the other hard parts about miscarriage. What could I have done
differently to continue on with a healthy pregnancy? Was it the one day I forgot my prenatal?
Did I drink too much coffee? You find anything you could have done wrong to blame yourself.
Speaking of guilt. Another baby? Let’s talk about that. Immediately when it happened I kind of
felt like I would be okay having another one whenever the time came. But before we dig too
deep into that I should give you a little backstory on our new timeline. During my pregnancy I
was diagnosed with graves disease, an autoimmune disorder causing an imbalance of my
thyroid hormones. That is honestly a whole different story. The graves disease did not cause my
miscarriage but my doctor and I have decided it is best that I do not become pregnant in the

next 3 months to figure out the next step in my health. In that time I have of course had more
time to think about another baby. The biggest line that plays in my head is “another baby will not
replace the baby that we have lost.” *Guilt trigger.* I have learned that another pregnancy will
not fill that hole in my heart. In fact, I am SO SO scared to get pregnant again in all reality. What
if something goes wrong again? How would I handle this again? What if I get pregnant again
and I feel guilt TOWARDS my new baby because why wasn’t my other baby good enough for
earth? So many questions and worries, and let me tell you, I know how to worry like it’s my job!
Pregnancy is supposed to be beautiful. I am so scared I will not be able to enjoy it again the way
it should be enjoyed.

I have better days and bad days. I say better, because there is not a day that it does not cross
my mind. I would say that in this season, things are just hard. As if the everyday struggles of life
aren’t already hard. I am just plain tired of being sad. I have always considered myself a pretty
happy and bubbly person, but this season of life has brought me to lows I have never imagined
myself feeling. I obviously endured all stages of grief, except acceptance as I previously
mentioned. I feel stuck in this “depression” state. I remember my very first break down was
about 2 weeks after the loss. I was laying in my bed with my husbands arms around me sobbing
saying that I hated my life. I have never hated my life. I still don’t hate my life. In my moment of
weakness I thought I hated my life. I LOVE the people I have in my life. I am in fact so lucky to
have those people surrounding me, and I can say all of that right now because today, I feel OK..
my next big break down was actually recently. Our family vacation came to an end and all of my
emotions came flowing in. I lost it on our last night. Sobbing(I mean I could barely even talk) for
probably a good couple of hours. I don’t let myself cry it out often. I think I let it all build up and
take hold of me. I have learned that I feel better when I talk about things, but that doesn’t mean
it’s always easy to talk.

On the outside looking in, as a person who had not ever been through a miscarriage it was easy
to think that someone’s life just goes on after a loss. I have learned that is not the case. As I
mentioned earlier, it crosses my mind every day. Before it happened to me I would have never
imagined how HARD it actually is. I think a lot of people don’t realize it. The littlest thing can
trigger my emotions. A pregnant woman walking across the street, someone’s belly photo,
someone telling me someone is pregnant. I can’t stand that I feel that way! I want to feel nothing
but joy for those women, and of course I do feel joy for them, but it is also so hard not to let my
emotions get the best of me and miss my pregnancy/my baby. That’s just the raw truth behind a
miscarriage. When we decided we wanted to find out the gender I heard things like “well I didn’t
really make a connection to it, I just don’t know if it’s a good idea.” “It might just be better to
move past it and not make it harder.” Here’s the thing. I cannot imagine my heart aching any
more or any less than it does. I carried a baby for 3 months and 1 week. I will ALWAYS have a
connection to that baby. I completely get someone else not forming so much of a connection, no
judgement there. But I cannot imagine how people would not think of how strong my connection
will always be, under any circumstance. I think that’s an issue with miscarriage. It is such a
taboo subject to talk about, that people genuinely don’t understand how much of a toll it can
take on a person mentally.

As far as PPD after miscarriage, I strongly believe it is a possibility. One day when I was feeling
really low it came across my mind and I tried to research it but I couldn’t really find much on it. I
would love to see more studies on it. My mind always wonders “am I just stuck in this
depressing feeling stage of grief at the moment, or could it be something more.” I love
everything that PPDJourney stands for and I am so fortunate to be able to share my story with you all.